The decision favours developers and hinders data enthusiasts. Why? What makes developers a better class of person in Twitter’s eyes? Why can developers with their fancy pants Python, PhP and Ruby skills get their hands on the data, but the rest of the world can’t?

Scraperwiki’s service, in my eyes, removed the middle man for those who don’t know how to code.

Apart from keeping developers in business, I don’t see the difference between the scenarios. Feel free to explain it to me in the comments.